Affirming emergent practices in educational technology: the politics of usage

Drawing on de Certeau's characterisation of everyday practice as reuse, this paper focuses on the micropolitics of mobile touch-screen devices (MTSD) usage, and how emergent practices - appropriations and (re)deployments - interface with institutionalised notions of learning. The recontextualisation of technological artefacts into formal education settings can (and often does) result in a 'domestication' or 'schooling' of technology, bringing with it familiar power relations and patterns of success. However, the indeterminacy of technology allows for potentially subversive practices, for surreptitious appropriation and re-deployment of devices, processes and texts, and for 'counterplay' that challenges the ways that schooling is traditionally done. This paper discusses three examples of MTSD usage that highlight the productive role of users as creators of their own contexts for learning. The examples include young children's home usage of iPads, an early year teacher's use of iPads in her classroom, and a young child's account of his use of an iPad app at school. The paper is framed by a discussion of the possibilities opened up by practice-based approaches (such as that of de Certeau) for change-oriented research that seeks to affirm emergent and/or marginalised practices; to trouble tacit assumptions about schooling; and, to understand the relation between everyday practices and the institutionalised ground that they transform.

Interactive television in schools : an Australian study of the tensions of educational technology and change

This paper outlines some key issues that arose from several projects that investigated the use of interactive television in schooling. In this paper we draw on these projects, to illustrate and discuss how a (then) new form of distance education -- satellite-based, narrowcast ITV -- was designated for use in primary (elementary) and secondary (high school) classroom settings, how it was implemented, and how it collapsed as an endeavour. Issues raised by students, teachers and administrators are related to each to illustrate how ITV slowly declined over several years, despite its usefulness for some and strong support from those involved.

The potential of a methodology for university-wide multimedia and educational technology evaluation

This paper reports on the methodology used for a review conducted at the University of Melbourne to determine the impact on teaching, learning and student study habits of multimedia and educational technology. Of particular methodological interest among the multiple components of the review was a quasi-controlled study of student attitudes towards and experiences of using educational technology. These were gathered using a targeted student sample comprising students known to have studied units in which well-established and highly peer rated IT products are deployed and a random student sample stratified to be representative of the typical student experience of the university. The paper reports the outcomes and effectiveness of this methodology.

Young children learning about evaporation: a longitudinal perspective

This paper traces the learning pathways over a 4-year period of 12 children learning about evaporation. The findings show the complexity and dependence on context of children's understandings. Detailed transcripts for 2 children are used to demonstrate how understandings of phenomena are framed within a network of personal narratives of self that reflect children's different subjectivities as learners and school children, It is argued that the longitudinal methodology opens up a more complex and nuanced view of children's conceptual learning in school settings than is afforded by cross-sectional studies and that the focus on individuals over time compels a very different construction of the learner than is represented in mainstream conceptual-change literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing the creative process for learning in primary technology education

When undertaking design and technology activities, children are provided with opportunities to create solutions to problems in new and innovative ways. The mental processes involved in the generation of new ideas may be enhanced when children’s attention is not focussed and is allowed to wander in a relaxed and uncompetitive environment. Research indicates that the two mental states, generative and non-generative, cannot exist simultaneously. This paper reports on a research project which investigated the impact on children’s thinking when a period of non-focussed thinking became part of the technology process. The results support the previous proposition that a child’s non-generative/analytical mental state needs to give way to a generative state so that a child can be more fully creative. Moreover, from this study that documented children’s ideas during their involvement in a design and technology activity, teachers are urged to provide an incubation period as part of the technological process in the classroom, so that children’s creativity can be fostered.

End-user control in web-based electronic services : a case study

This paper reports a case study of end-user control in delivery of Web-based electronic services. The case study concentrates the adoption of a Web-based electronic system being implemented in processing student’s admission applications on a Web site. The end-user’s control interface provides information on the detail existing in the Web-based electronic service. This insight into end-user synthesis in developing effective control in Web service environment relates to ease of use in doing the task. To assume the leverage of end-user control strictly on the basis of the Web service usage would limit the purpose of understanding. Rather it is suggested that it would be better to develop an approach to study the end-user ease of use interface in doing the task with the user’s perception towards Web-based interactivity.

End-user experience with information in Web-based electronic service : a case study

End-user experience with information presumably considered as one of the prominent factors shaping the adoption of web-based electronic services. User interfacing with large amount of information the rationale is to deduce the effect in the current web-based task environment. Understanding user’s perception on the basis of the prior experience with information may provide insights into what constitutes in driving those perceptions and their effect in the current and future task in web-based electronic services. The paper lays the theoretical context of end-user experience with information and proceeds further in an attempt to distinguish the role in web-based electronic services.

Calculators, mathematics and young children : a study of six children using calculators as part of the mathematics curriculum during their first two years of school

The thesis investigates the role a calculator can play in the developing number knowledge of three girls and three boys as part of their mathematics program, during their first two years at primary school. Random sampling was used initially to select six girls and six boys from the twenty-four children entering a 1993 prep class. These twelve children were interviewed on entrance to school and based on the performance of the twelve children on the initial interview, a girl and a boy were chosen from the higher, middle and lower achievers to take part in the full study. The class teachers involved were previously participants in the ‘Calculators in Primary Mathematics’ research program and were committed to the use of calculators in their mathematics program. A case study approach using qualitative methods within the activity theory framework is used to collect relevant data and information, an analysis of five interviews with each child and observations of the children in forty-one classroom lessons provides comprehensive data on the children's developing number knowledge during the two years. The analysis questionnaires establishes each teacher's perceptions of the children's number learning at the beginning and end of each year, compares teacher expectations with children's actual performance for the year and compares curriculum expectations with children's actual performance. A teacher interview established reasons for changes in teaching style; teacher expectations; children's number learning; and was used to confirm my research findings. An activity theory framework provides an appropriate means of co-coordinating perspectives within this research to enable a description of the child's number learning within a social environment. This framework allows for highlighting the mediation offered by the calculator supporting the children's number learning in the classroom. Levels of children's developing number knowledge reached when working with a calculator and as a result of calculator use are mapped against the levels recommended in ‘Mathematics in the National Curriculum’ (National Curriculum Council, December 1988), and the Curriculum and Standards Framework: Mathematics (Board of Studies 2000). Findings from this comparison illustrate that the six children's performance in number was enhanced when using a calculator and indicate that on-going development and understanding of number concepts occurred at levels of performance at least two years in advance of curriculum recommendations for the first two years of school.

Workplace learning of information technology workers in Hong Kong

This study found that to information technology professionals in Hong Kong, the workplace was a rich environment in which to learn. However, as information technology changed and became more complex, none of them knew all about the technologies they used and for each technology, there could be different ways of knowing it.